Jomo Kenyatta quotes

Jomo Kenyatta was a prominent Kenyan politician and anti-colonial activist, regarded as the founding father of Kenya. As Kenya’s first Prime Minister and later President, he played a key role in the country’s struggle for independence from British rule. He is celebrated for uniting the nation and setting the foundations for modern Kenyan statehood. Here are 10 of his quotes:

God said this is our land, land in which we flourish as people... we want our cattle to get fat on our land so that our children grow up in prosperity; and we do not want the fat removed to feed others.

Jomo Kenyatta

I have no intention of retaliating or looking backwards. We are going to forget the past and look forward to the future.

Jomo Kenyatta

The basis of any independent government is a national language, and we can no longer continue aping our former colonizers ... those who feel they cannot do without English can as well pack up and go.

Jomo Kenyatta

When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.

Jomo Kenyatta

Our children may learn about the heroes of the past. Our task is to make ourselves the architects of the future.

Jomo Kenyatta

The Bible is not the property of one nation or of one group of people.

Jomo Kenyatta

Today, we in Kenya are making our own history, as an independent Republic. In the dark years of the war, when this work was written, social studies might have seemed absurdly academic, were it not for the living faith of a Christian society. A generation later, we find a new perspective, a greater and more universal enlightenment, brought about by swifter communications and mass media which probe into and make familiar all the social patterns of our human family.

Jomo Kenyatta

Communism is as bad as imperialism.

Jomo Kenyatta

We have to learn by experience, and this is the policy of my Government. In our Kanu manifiesto, we state clearly that we are not going to discriminate because of race, colour or religion. We are going to treat Kenyans on an equal footing and the law of Kenya is going to apply to Europeans, Asians and Africans, those who are citizens of this country. They are going to be treated alike. We cannot have our cake and eat it. We have started our policy and we are going to follow it.

Jomo Kenyatta